A beef farmer is calling for dog owners to pick up their pet’s poo to help save livestock from a nasty disease which causes cows to abort their calves.

John Lewis, from Holm Place Farm in Queenborough Road, Halfway, has spoken of the dangers of Neospora – a parasite which can invade, live and multiply inside a living host – after witnessing a fellow cattle rearer lose everything due to dog mess being left on grazing fields.

The 80-year-old said: “It affects both cows and horses.

“The first signs you get of it are abortions of the animal's young – cows have the same length of pregnancy as human beings and if they have Neospora they usually abort at the five to seven-month mark in their pregnancy.

“You get stillbirths and sometimes cows will have brain disease at birth as well.

“There's no cure, you can't do anything about it. But you can have blood tests done to see if the cows have caught it.”

According to the Wildlife Trust, the diseases that cows are tested for include Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD), Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR), Johnes Disease, Leptospirosis and Neospora.

The charity explains on its website that Neospora can be caught by cattle when a dog, infected with Neospora, leaves poo in a field which isn't picked up by the owner.

The cows eating the grass would then become infected and either abort their young or have a live calf that is also infected.

However, this isn’t the only way the parasite can be spread. If a heifer gives birth or has a stillbirth in their field the dead calf or placenta can be eaten by dogs or foxes.

They then become infected and the cycle begins again. The Wildlife Trust charity reported that up to 10% of all calf abortions in the UK could be caused by Neospora.

Mr Lewis, who has been farming for 53 years, explained: “Farmers just don’t want to see an unwanted and unwelcome group of dogs as a result, we just don’t want it.

“I know a farmer who had suckler cows and he grazed them on some parkland he had rented.

“But people had walked their dogs all over it for years and his cows ended up contracting Neospora and they had so many abortions he had to kill them all.

“He had to make that decision because once cows have got it within them they'll always have it.

“If the cows have a calf they might abort it very early on and you'd never know. That is when a dog or a fox can come along and eat it, passing the parasite around again.”

Farmer John, who rears around 40 Sussex cows, is lucky enough to have never had a case of Neospora on his land.

However, he said the farmer who grazed his cattle on the parkland had no choice but to “get out of beef cattle and do other things” after Neospora “killed” his livelihood.

Mr Lewis added: “That's why it is important to worm your dogs and pick up after them.”